Prologue

-Ellie-

I am an ugly person.

I do ugly things.

I think ugly thoughts.

You will hate me.

You will detest the choices that I have made.

You won’t understand me at all.

You may feel some sympathy. A shred of sadness for the woman I’ve become. It’s hard not to feel bad for the person who has fallen so far.

But you will love him.

It’s hard not to.

He is everything that I’m not.

He is good. He is kind. He cares for others deeply and absolutely.

He is talented. He is shy. He is smart in ways I can only dream of.

He loves with all of his heart.

He believes when I refute. He succeeds when I fail. He blooms when I shrivel up and die.

Why does a man like this want a woman like me?

It’s blasphemous. Improbable. Completely wrong.

But he does.

He sees the beauty where others don’t. He hears love when others only hear pain. He gives me the strength to become the person I’ve been terrified to be.

You will hate me.

You will love him.

I love him.

He has changed my world.

1

-Ellie-

I handed the yellow slip of paper to the bored looking girl behind the counter. “Box number 113,” I said impatiently. The girl didn’t bother to make eye contact as she took the slip from me and turned her back after closing her mouth on a yawn.

She came back a minute later with a small brown box and handed it to me. I took it without a thank you. Manners weren’t my thing. Squeezing my package in my hands I hurried out of the post office. I felt a thrill of excitement as I crossed the street and let myself into my tiny ground floor apartment.

The sad state of neglect I lived in didn’t register. It never did. The stale air smelled sour but it didn’t bother me. The giant hole in the ceiling where the plaster was missing didn’t matter. I quickly went into my bedroom and shut the door. I made my way to my dresser and laid the box down.

With eager fingers I ripped it open, pulling out tissue paper and dropping it on the floor. My hands practically shook as I reached inside and pulled the small, perfectly detailed replica of the Taj Mahal. I held it in my palm and gently touched it, amazed and totally in awe of the craftsmanship that went into creating such a perfect piece of art.

Carefully I placed the figurine in its place amongst the others of similar size and quality. I admired my new edition, sat there beside the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben. There was the Sphinx and the Sydney Opera House. The Kremlin and Christ the Redeemer. They were beautiful and my one allowed sentimental indulgence.

Now that I had added the new purchase to my collection, I swiftly left my room and shut the door. Closing my excitement and momentary feelings of joy inside. Locked away where they belonged.

Not bothering to change, I went to work, walking three blocks to the run down convenience store where I spent forty hours a week. Jeb, the owner, had new metal bars installed over the windows just last week and already it looked as though someone had taken a hacksaw to them.

People in this town had no shame. They had no respect for other’s property. Little care and attention had been given to the blocks of buildings housing storefronts and apartments.

The town of Wellsburg, West Virginia was dying a slow and painful death. And I was trapped inside. This ship would be taking me down with it.

I walked through the door of JAC’s Quick Stop, the bell sounding out like a tortured cow above me. It was empty. It was always empty. I wasn’t sure why Jeb bothered to hire anyone to begin with. Customers were like good taste in this godforsaken part of the world, non-existent.

JAC’s Quick Stop was a mouthful, so the locals had shortened it to JAC’s. Jeb had originally named the store for his floozy ex-wife, Jemma Anne Crawford, who had left him over two years ago for the pimply faced pizza delivery guy twenty years her junior. It had been quite the scandal, but the gossip had eventually fizzled out under the weight of real life, which wasn’t as exciting but a lot more depressing.

Wellsburg sat in a tiny pocket of land in the Appalachian Mountains. We weren’t a bunch of mountain folk that slept with our cousins and kept chickens in the house, but it was a place where hope disappeared.

It had been founded for the coal miners and their families and had at one time been alive and thriving. But that was before the Black River coalmines had collapsed in a horrific accident twenty-five years ago. Over fifty men had been killed and the company operating the mine had sunk under the heaviness of public disapproval and official investigations into the safety of their operation.

People began to move away from Wellsburg and those that had stayed behind were the ones with nowhere else to go.

It made sense that the small town was still my home. It was the perfect place for a girl with no plan. No future. No one that really gave a damn.

But I wasn’t lonely or bitter. I had stopped feeling sorry for myself by the time I had entered my third foster home at the age of seven. The tears had dried up. Emotions packed away. The need to survive at all costs taking their place.

So here I was, twenty-two years old, working shitty hours at a dead end job, and living with a grim acceptance of my fate.

I hung up my jacket and purse on the hook behind the cash register. I didn’t greet the young boy who sat on the stool behind the counter. He gave me a nervous smile before vacating his seat, leaving it for me to occupy.

“Hi, Ellie,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Hi Steve,” I answered back. He blinked at me in surprise, perhaps because I said hi, or maybe because I remembered his name. It wasn’t something I typically bothered to do. But I was feeling a little nicer than normal after receiving my package.